Hear no Evil, See no Evil
by Starkiller
Summary: Post DH: Fred will do anything to win back Angelina's heart, even if it means venturing through the strange little door that has appeared in Stoatshead Hill. Angelina x Fred, FredxOC
1. In Which Westminister Bridge is Alerted

**Disclaimer:** Nothing pertaining to Harry Potter, or the plot of Stardust, belongs to me. HP belongs to Harry Potter and the original plot of Stardust came from the brilliant and eccentric mind of Neil Gaimen.

**A/N:** Ah yes, more Fred romance. Gotta love it. This fic takes place two years after Deathly Hallows and Fred survived the Battle of Hogwarts.

After reading, watching and repeatedly listening to the Stardust soundtrack, I decided to write something along a similar plot. Similar - but _not_ a crossover!! This story is what happens when I'm struck down with flu and have nothing else to do other than let my imagination run away with me (actually my other Fred fic, Twin Vice, was put together during a spout of glandular fever lol XD).

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'_Catch a falling Star  
And put it in your pocket  
Never let it fade away'_

**Hear no Evil, See no Evil**  
In Which Westminister Bridge is Alerted to an S.O.S.

**oOo**

As with every fairytale, this one begins with a series of very peculiar events. The first of these events started on an otherwise normal day, but not, perhaps, in an otherwise normal city.

The day in question was a Tuesday. The place was London city, heart of the British Isles. And the month was April; a remarkably dry April – it is important to note the weather in the case of the particular event which was about to take place above the Thames, bringing traffic across Westminister Bridge to an abrupt stop. The congestion tailed all the way back to Charring Cross and generally brought chaos to an already chaotic city.

This did not concern the cluster of tourists and drivers on Westminister Bridge, however, many of whom had left their Landrovers, Bentleys and modern Minis in order to get a better look at the thing which now hung, suspended, about a hundred feet above the Thames. Later, a few spectators would claim that they had seen a shooting star thunder over their heads like a rocket before it exploded in a shower of hissing, spitting fireworks which then coiled and slithered to form the three suspended letters. A woman from Tottenham Court insisted that the three letters had appeared in a puff of purple smoke and another man visiting from Woking argued that the letters had risen from the muddy waters of the Thames itself.

Whatever their origin, every man, woman and newspaper article accordingly printed agreed on one thing – the smoky letters hanging in the clear sky above the Thames spelled S.O.S.

There were only two people in the entire chaotic city of London who truly understood what these three letters signified.

To most people S.O.S. translated as_Save Our Souls_, and would likely evoke images of cruel storms, undulating waves, ships lost at sea, and to a few more imaginative minds, perhaps, the ghosts of the _Mary Celeste_ and the Unsinkable _Titanic_.

Arthur Weasley was not most people. In fact it would be somewhat rude to call him _most people_. Arthur Weasley was not _most people._ Arthur Weasley was father to seven very talented children, husband to one very exceptional wife and friend to the person responsible for the first of our peculiar events.

But most importantly, Arthur Weasley was a wizard.

The second of our two spectators to grasp the true meaning of the three suspended letters above the Thames was quite the opposite of the strange and wonderful Arthur Weasley. Detective Gertrude Nox had just turned twenty-one and she was not a romantic. She was what you might call a very _safe_ being. She was reliable, down to earth and she did not like change. She enjoyed plain food with little spice, picked her clothes from the bargain bins, almost always wore a white cotton shirt, black trousers and braces, and enjoyed her own company. She did not suffer fools gladly and was not the greatest detective the city had ever seen, but she was not the worst either.

Detective Nox was most certainly_not_ a wizard. This is not to say that she was without her own curiosities. She did, after all, know that the letters above the Thames did not signify _Save Our Souls._ This was due to one distinct feature – or rather, three distinct features. Between each letter, where a period normally stood, was placed a tiny symbol, visible only to her carefully trained eye. Each symbol was a Rune glyph.

As mentioned briefly, Arthur Weasley had seven children and the middle-born of these had recently come close to being the first to die, but that is another story altogether. The name of the middle-born was Frederick Gideon Weasley and he was a twin.

Fred Weasley was not down to earth. In fact, his mother could swear that her son had been born with springs in his feet. Fred was also unpredictable and he thrived on change. As long as there was food on the table, he would eat it. His clothes were picked from the finest Wizarding shops (for he was no longer a poor man), and often clashed violently with his flame-red hair and nut-brown freckles. He was a prankster, a jester and a self-professed player. He was never alone because he always had George.

Fred was an outstanding wizard.

He ran a successful business in the heart of the Wizarding community, Diagon Alley – a long, cobbled lane in London where the shops and houses are squashed together and boast signs such as Eeylops' Owl Emporium, Old Mallard's Magical Mayhem, The Leaky Cauldron and Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. The last of these belonged to Fred and George Weasley.

No ordinary person can see Diagon Alley, you understand. Muggles, as that as how we will refer to ordinary folk from now on, are happy in their ignorance of magic. Occasionally a Muggle will glimpse into the Wizarding world and afterwards they are never quite the same again, but most are content with looking the other way – Muggles and magic folk live in very separate worlds, after all.

**oOo**

Fred Weasley had no idea of the strange occurrence happening above the Thames in the not so far off distance. For the past six years he had been courting Angelina Johnson on and off, and at that moment she was clinging to him, hard, and fumbling with the buttons of his cloak and jeans.

Angelina was beautiful. Her skin was nut-brown like his freckles and her hair was black as ebony. She had turned many heads in the time he had known her, including that of his best friend, Lee Jordan, and every now and again Fred noticed his own twin casting her a long and lingering look.

Angelina was strong, he admired that, and she always knew what she wanted. Currently, she had him straddled, naked and slippery with sweat, and there was a triumphant twinkle in her dark eyes. Her lips, full and perfectly shaped, smiled at him and when she leaned down to his open, waiting mouth, Fred tried to remember the first time they had shared a kiss. They had attended the same school, of course – Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry – and walked out to the Yule Ball together. With a grin and a gasp, he concluded the Ball must have been the scene of their first kiss.

He ground and bucked against Angelina, tasting her skin, letting her long legs wrap around him. Towards the end she tried to keep him inside her, but Fred never allowed her to win that game.

It was a good relationship. Not what he had expected, but comfortable and it made sense; he had been playing around for too long now. Fred expected they would be married soon.

But the letters hanging above the Thames said differently.

**oOo**

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**A/N:** Hope you enjoyed the prologue (it's so nice to write short chapters in compared to my other full-length monstrosities). Anyways, please do review and let me know what you think! Oh, and BOO to JKR and her GeorgexAngelina news! Grrrr, that women is so intent on making his life a bloody misery. She even admitted in a recent interview that his relationship with Angelina is a bit unhealthy because she was Fred's ex. Argh argh argh. I don't need to read crap news like this when i'm sick! 


	2. In Which a Small Yellow Door Appears

**A/N:** Thank you so much for the fab reviews folks! You may have noticed the title change – sorry for the confusion, but this title is much more apt (you'll see why soon...)

I know this is a ridiculously fast update and that probably no one will read it because of that, but I'm really sick with flu and I've got nothing to do but write on my laptop XD Anyway, hope you enjoy! To everyone who might still be wondering, this story takes place in the Millennium, two years after the events of Deathly Hallows in 1998.

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'_Catch a falling Star  
And put it in your pocket  
Save it for a Rainy day'_

**Hear no Evil, See no Evil**  
In Which a Small Yellow Door Appears in the Side of Stoatshead Hill

**oOo**

They had broken up again. Fred wasn't entirely sure why this time. Normally they would argue until they were each red in the face, then one – usually him – would announce that they were washing their hands of the relationship and stride out of the room, slamming the door hard behind them.

But while he would never admit it, Fred was quite a jealous man and seeing the attention Angelina received on the Quidditch pitch, or along the cobbled lane of Diagon Alley, turned him green with envy and soon they were back in bed, tumbling, writhing, gasping.

This break-up felt different somehow. For one thing, there had been no fighting. And Fred did not storm out of the apartment he shared with George above Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes; he didn't have the chance to. One night, without a warning or a mishap, Angelina turned to him.

"You never look at me as if you're seeing me for the first time."

He was surprised to see tears in her eyes. His surprise didn't go down well.

She shook her head sadly, tears trickling down her dusky cheeks, and turned away from him. "I can't do this anymore. I deserve better."

Angelina left the flat at a steady gait. The door did not slam behind her.

Fred sat on the couch, feeling sick and a little empty. By the morning he had a cold. By the evening he had a raging fever. George sat up with him all night, feeding him hot porridge and poking fun at the fact that his twin was lost for words for the first time in his life.

"Blimey, this has gotta be a first for the books. Sicker than a lovesick puppy, you are. Cripes, never thought I'd see the day." George laughed and forced another spoonful of soppy, lumpy porridge down Fred's throat.

Fred glowered and thought his twin was taking a little too much satisfaction in his current state of ill-health.

"Well I can't say it's not a treat to see you taken down a peg or two. And who knows, maybe this'll teach your big fat head a lesson or two for the future." Fred gave him the finger. George's smile softened and he pressed a cold cloth to his twin's sweaty forehead. "You great daft bugger. So what are you going to do about it?"

That was a fine question and one Fred mulled over in those rare moments of conscious thought when his fever retreated a little and the daylight stung his gold eyes. How was he going to win back Angelina's heart? Fred knew now that Angelina was the only girl in the world for him and he looked back on their relationship as being one of those epic works of fated romance. He'd win her back, by some trick or another – after all, he was a master of trickery; had made his fortune from it.

But after his grand sweeping gestures and gifts of Dozen Dancing Dandys, Reaping Roses and Barking Ballads were returned one after the other without so much as a note, Fred decided to enlist the help of an outside party.

"_Pardon?_" Hermione Granger gaped at him. "I must be hearing things. Fred Weasley has actually come down off his high horse to ask _me_ for help?" She put her hand to his forehead. "You must still be suffering from that fever."

"And I see your still suffering from _Bigheaditus_. You and Percy should see a specialist about that, could be deadly," Fred retorted, mildly. "I'm not asking for your saintly help, Bushel-head, I'm merely asking for your assistance in getting Angelina back. But that means no lectures, no scolding, no clicking your tongue and absolutely _no_ I-told-you-so's!"

"Hmm. So I take it Angelina has left you for good this time." Hermione clicked her tongue before she could stop herself then shot a sheepish look at Fred. "Sorry. But what on earth do you want my help for? Surely there are people better suited for the job, like Ginny? Or even Fleur?"

Fred shook his head. "Merlin be buggered if I can understand a single word Fleur says. Besides, she has two toomany distracting assets. And Ginny would go and blab to Mum. No, I'm afraid you'll have to do, Hermione. I'll admit you've got a neat enough noggin under all that hair." Fred beamed, rubbing his hands together, and suddenly he reminded Hermione a little too much of Hogwarts' wicked poltergeist, Peeves. "All you have to do is help me devise a cunning plan that will trick Angelina back into my awaiting arms."

"Trick?" Hermione repeated, with arched eyebrows. "Fred, you can't _trick_ Angelina into falling back in love with you. If you really want to prove how you feel about her, you have to send her a token of your love - "

"I've_done_ that!" groaned Fred. "That's all I've been bloody well doing! If I try any harder, my freckles will fall off."

Hermione was unimpressed by his outburst. "Sending her presents and little jokes, I'm sure. Material goods don't prove a person's feelings. You have to think of something more subtle and meaningful, like a letter."

Fred stroked his chin, musingly, looking for a minute as though he were loathed to agree with her, but eventually he conceded to Hermione's plan and dragged a sheet of parchment out of a desk drawer. He licked the tip of his writing utensil and put it to the paper when Hermione raised her hand abruptly.

"Erm, Fred," she muttered, gawping slightly, "that's a Curly Wurly."

"Indeed it is. Very observant. What's your point?"

"Only that you cannot, under any circumstances, write a letter of undying love and devotion with a _chocolate bar_."

"Ah, but it's not just a chocolate bar." He bit it in half and pointed its innards at her nose. "It's chocolate _and_ caramel. Genius Muggles and their simple yet highly effective inventions. And with words as sweet as my love, I'm bound to win Angie back." He winked, craftily, and was met with a very icy glare.

"If you're not going to take this seriously, then I _won't_be helping you."

Fred rolled his eyes and reached into the bottom drawer of his desk for a quill, muttering under his breath, "Blimey, Ron must fancy a bit of S&M to put up with this."

"What was that?" Hermione asked, suspiciously.

"I said would you fancy an M&M, my dearest Miss?"

"Chocolates_away_, Fred."

They worked on the letter to Angelina well into the night, Ron and George occasionally supplying them with food and drink. Ron had almost had a heart attack when he found Fred bent over a desk, being dictated to by his fiancé. It was one of those scenes that either made you feel as if the world and the laws of physics had just gone topsy turvy, or you were turning stark raving bonkers. Ron settled on the latter.

The words flowed well enough onto the paper – Fred could recall the lyrics of a hundred soppy songs his mother and youngest sister had played on the radio, but Hermione was a harsh critic and it wasn't until one o'clock in the morning that she was finally satisfied with the letter.

"Blimey, 'Mione!" Fred whistled. "I tell you what, I can forgive how long it took for Ron to get the guts up to snog you. You're a hard one to impress."

"This letter would melt the heart of a giant." Hermione smiled, then paused, wonderingly. "But, are you sure you're doing this for the right reasons?"

Fred frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well…" She stopped for a moment and pondered, wanting to make sure she worded her question very carefully. "I was just wondering why Angelina left you in the first place."

Fred turned his gaze away, folding the parchment into an envelope carefully. "I haven't a clue."

He sent the letter that night.

**oOo**

A month had passed since the appearance of the S.O.S above Westminister Bridge when the second of our three peculiar events occurred.

When Arthur Weasley had been a lad starting his first year at Hogwarts, he had befriended Xenophilius Lovegood and Edward Balthazar Nox after an incident involving a set of plugs, an earwig and one very irate Lucias Malfoy. Their bond was cemented after Arthur, Edward and Xenophilius endured a good beating from Malfoy's Slytherin gang. There is something about a good, bloody-nosed fight which forms a steadfast bond, especially in young boys, and this instance was no exception. Edward and Xenophilius were as close to Arthur as his own flesh and blood. Through the years they had encouraged his obsession with Muggle trinkets and contraptions, urged on his romance with Molly Prewett, supported his elopement and twice fought beside him when the Dark Lord threatened their world.

So maybe it was just intuition, but Arthur knew something was not quite right. He had glimpsed the three letters floating above the Thames that Tuesday, one month ago in April, when stepping out of the Ministry of Magic. He did not need to see the three Rune glyphs to know straight away that it was Edward's mark.

In the months since the first peculiar event, Arthur had done everything within his means to contact his old friend, but it seemed nobody in the world knew of Edward's whereabouts –

– Except, perhaps, one person; Edward's daughter, a Squib who lived and worked in London. However, Gertrude Nox had grown up knowing nothing of witches, wizards, magic and Dark Lords.

On the 2nd of May, marking the second year since the Last Battle of Hogwarts and the end of the Dark Wizard, Lord Voldemort's reign, Arthur was walking with his wife in the countryside around the village of Ottery St Catchpole when he spotted the second peculiar occurrence.

There was a large grassy hill to the West of Ottery St Catchpole which was rarely visited by Muggles or Muggle children. It had for this very reason been the location of choice for the Portkey that Arthur and his youngest sons had used to transport themselves to the Quidditch World Cup, five years ago.

Stoatshead Hill was unremarkable by all accounts. Or at least it certainly had been until that very morning when Molly, with an alarmed gasp, gripped his arm and pointed her finger at a small, rounded, yellow, door which had appeared in the side of the hill.

On further inspection, and much to the disapproval of his nervous wife, Arthur could make out an inscription carved around the edge of the little yellow door, which read as follows:

_'Little Far  
Little Near  
Out of there  
And into here  
Over hill  
And over grass  
Through the door  
To Looking Glass...'_

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**oOo**

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************** A/N:**God I hate being sick. I want to leave my bed already : ( Ah wells, please review and let me know what you think! Next chapter will likely be up tomorrow.


	3. In Which Fred Weasley makes a Perilous

**A/N:** This chapter gets very Stardust like, but again, fear not! You don't have to know a single thing about the book. It's technically unrelated. Anyway, I put my disclaimed in the first chapter just to make sure. There's a bit more Fred x Angelina in this chapter for you fans. Sorry if the Rune stuff gets a bit confusing (I love my detective though, little flat-chested Nox, hee). Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far, you've all been very kind!

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* * *

'_For love may come and tap you on the shoulder  
Some starless night,  
Just in case you feel you want to hold her__  
You'll have a pocketful of starlight…'_

**Hear no Evil, See no Evil  
**In Which Fred Weasley makes a Perilous Promise

**oOo**

"There is nothing in the world that will make me come back to you, Fred," Angelina told him sadly, one grey day on the 2nd of May, "as much as I wish there could be," and she handed him back his letter. It was the second time she had walked away from him.

It wasn't until much later in the day that Fred caught wind of the rumour flying up and down Diagon Alley – a rumour of a strange little door in a not-so-strange little hill near his home of Ottery St Catchpole.

**oOo**

Detective Nox was sitting in her study, pouring over papers and casebooks which occupied every inch of desk space as well as a good portion of the floor.

Her flat was a modest one; not too big, not too small. It was situated in Islington so she was never too far (or too close), from the city centre.

Artemis, a large bandy-legged tom cat who occasionally vacationed in her flat, was prowling around her ankles and eyeing up the plain ham sandwich Nox had fixed four hours ago. She had long-since given up on dissuading the squashed-faced cat from climbing in the kitchen window. She laid the plate on the floor, then leaned back into her chair with a heavy sigh.

"How can I work when there's a _Sauce_ on the wall?" she muttered, referring to the piece of paper with the three letters, (_S O S_) and the Rune glyphs in between, that was nailed to the wall in front of her desk. Nox tucked her pen behind one ear and stared hard until her eyes felt dry and sore. Every day she found herself staring at it longer and longer.

"You demand to be dealt with like a ruddy _raja,_ sitting up there on your high horse," she said scornfully to the piece paper, which did not speak back. "Who do you think you are anyway, turning up in the middle of London and during rush hour, no less! Bloody cheek, you've no respect for people who adhere to a busy work schedule. I'll box your ears when you get back and make no bloody mistake."

The character to whom she was referring has not yet been formally introduced; that of Edward Balthazar Nox, Archaeologist, Palaeontologist, Symbologist, Zoologist, Egyptologist, Geologist, and likely any other _ologist_ you could possibly think of. In short, Edward was a genius, albeit a little mad. He was a stout figured Scotsman with a thick head of grey hair and a comically large handlebar moustache. Every year on the 2nd of May he would return from his travels to England and arrive on his daughter's doorstep with an armful of trinkets, gadgets and whatsits from lands she was fairly sure did not exist, had never existed and had no plans to exist in the near future.

Despite his many qualifications in arts and academia, her father remained stony broke. How he managed to travel was a mystery, but Nox knew her father had a great many friends around the globe; some even more peculiar than he was.

S.O.S. was Edward's personal signature and was in short utter gibberish. It was the Rune symbols which held the real message.

Edward often changed the Runes replacing the periods after each letter. Every time his signature appeared in a birthday card, or a letter or on his luggage, the runes read as a different message or riddle. Mostly, her father did this for his own sheer amusement – Rune Riddles and befuddling people were two of his great passions – but somehow Nox doubted that even Edward, despite all his eccentricities and wicked, boyish sense of humour, would write his signature in the sky above the busiest section of London for a few cheap laughs.

She peered closer at the three Runes. The first symbol looked like a fish standing on its tail: the symbol of Separation.

The second symbol was an X, its two slanted lines identical and cutting each other through the crux: the symbol of partnership.

The third symbol resembled an M – this was the Rune of transition and movement.

Separation. Partnership. Movement. S.O.S.

Nox scratched her chin thoughtfully. "Come to think of it…"

She leaned down to a drawer in the bottom of the desk and pulled out a thick leather bound book, fastened by two bronze clasps. The gold embossed letters on the front cover read _Symbols through Centuries_.

Nox unclasped the latch and began to flip through the pages, hastily scribbling down three symbols on a scrap of paper on her desk: The Seal of Cagliostro, depicting a serpent pierced by a single arrow, representing the union between the active and passive wills; Osrane Nsorama, a crescent moon and sun representing the union of two opposites; and finally Sleipnir, the ancient Norse God Odin's eight-legged horse.

Seal for S, Osrane for O, Sleipnir for S.

Nox propped her elbows up on the desk and rested her chin in her hands.

"Each of Sleipnir's eight legs symbolise a point on the compass," she mumbled to herself. "So it's just as I thought, the last S in S.O.S. translates as travel or Movement, just like the third rune. And the O and second rune both translate as partnership. The first S and rune are slightly different, but both can be construed as_change_." With a huff, she blew her flopping fringe out of her eyes, feeling quite irritated. "It's the same message, twice reinforced. Seal, Osrane, Sleipnir - Separation. Partnership. Movement." She ran her hands through her short dark hair and groaned. "_S.O.S._"

In her professional opinion as a detective, the message was utter jargon.

Artemis, who was curled in the detective's lap having decided that Nox had earned his affection after the meal of ham she had given him, turned a lazy eye in his squashed face to the three symbols on the paper.

Nox glanced at the calendar: May 2nd, 2000. Her father was due back today. He never told her precisely what time he would arrive, he was too careless to make arrangements like that, so Nox would always take the day off work to wait in for his arrival.

She checked her watch. "Ten to ten," she muttered.

It was getting late.

**oOo**

It had only been two weeks since May the 2nd when the little yellow door in the side of Stoatshead Hill had first appeared. Faerie hills and Brownie holes are not an uncommon sight in the Wizarding world, but Brownies and faeries are very careful not to reveal their homes to human eyes, for they do not trust us, not one bit.

But the faerie door in the side of Stoatshead Hill did not disappear. It stayed there all through the day and all through the night, a fixture on the grassy mound. Nobody ever went in and nobody ever came out, and no charm or spell that the Ministry of Magic performed could unlock it or remove it, or hide it from the curious eyes of the Muggles in Ottery St Catchpole.

A little square black and white photograph of the door appeared in the local paper the next day, and two days after that the BBC's 6 O'clock news did a feature on the Mysterious Door of Stoatshead Hill. Most Muggles took it for a hoax and after a fortnight the country had begun to forget about the door completely, but for the inhabitants of Ottery St Catchpole it was not so easy to ignore.

As the month was May and Spring was making its way out, the sun was often shining and the temperature was beginning to rise, but there was always a very cold wind drafting around the base of Stoatshead Hill. Nobody would dare light a match or set a fire in the village, for often was the case that the sparks would shoot up in fireworks, and every night at precisely ten to twelve, all the cats in the neighbourhood would meet in the village square and the air would be filled with screeching, howling, hissing and crying. The stars were brighter than normal too, even to a witch or wizard's eyes (who always the see stars brighter than Muggles do), and no one, not even magic folk, would stray too close to the hill.

Some things we know on instinct are better left alone.

But there is one instinct that overrides all others and as a result this logic did not enter into Fred Weasley's head, that third week in May.

He reached down to clasp Angelina's cool, slender hand in his own, smiling confidently. She had agreed to meet him one last time in the lane outside his family home; more commonly known to the Weasleys and their friends as _the Burrow_, a higglety piggelty jumble of crooked stories, walls, roofs, and chimneys on the outskirts of Ottery St Catchpole.

They walked through the countryside in silence. It was a mild night. Above them, the stars were shining brighter than ever, innumerable and twinkling and a billion miles away. In the not too far distance rose Stoatshead Hill, a rounded dark mass against the glittering sky. Fred stopped abruptly and turned Angelina round, gripping her by the shoulders.

"Marry me," he said, with every confidence in the world.

"Marry you?" Angelina repeated, incredulously, and pulled sharply out of his grip. "Was that a proposal or an order?"

"Whichever you like, I'm not really bothered," Fred replied and his gold eyes blazed in the starlight. "All I'm interested in is your answer."

"Why do you think I should marry you, Fred, when you don't even understand why I left you in the first place?"

"But I do understand," Fred interrupted, jabbing his thumb in his chest. "You want proof of my feelings and here it is. _Marry_ me."

"No," Angelina said, coldly. "I deserve better than trinkets and jokes and a letter written by Hermione Granger."

Fred's eyebrows rose in surprise. "How did you know?"

"If you don't know your own feelings, if you can't tell me what they are or write them down for yourself, or show me in a way that proves you love me from the top of your head to the souls of your feet, then you're just playing another game and you don't love me, not really, not at all."

There was silence for a while. It swelled between them until Fred began to feel hot and frustrated and irritable. Why couldn't Angelina just smile and nod and throw her arms around his neck like the other girls proposed to by handsome men in ballads and stories always did? What else in the world was there left for him to prove to Angelina his feelings with?

A cool breeze from Stoatshead Hill suddenly cut his cheek so fine it felt as though someone had run the flat side of a blade against his skin. It was then that Fred remembered the little yellow door and an idea began to formulate in his head. You could always tell when Fred was planning something, for the corner of his mouth always lifted in a smirk and the pinkie finger on his right hand began to twitch.

He threw his arm out in a wide gesture towards the dark mound of Stoatshead Hill, a fiercely determined look on his young, freckled face.

"You told me there is nothing in this world that'll make you come back to me." He grinned and clasped her hands, an eager look in his eye. "Then I will get you something that is _not_ in this world."

Angelina frowned. "And how are you going to do that?"

"The door in Stoatshead Hill."

Angelina huffed, tiredly. "No one can open that, Fred, and no one ever comes out. You can't get through there."

But Fred was already wagging his finger in her pretty face. "Never tell a Weasley he can't do anything! Especially when that Weasley is a twin. But you've got to promise me one thing: when I come back, the object I bring with me will be a wedding gift. When I come back, you'll marry me."

Angelina stared at him, her beautiful, almond-shaped eyes moving between Fred, with his back to the East, and Stoatshead Hill to the West.

"All right, then," she said, after a time. "Perhaps."

"Perhaps?"

Angelina folded her arms and closed her eyes, breathing deeply. "I'm probably completely mad to even contemplate this, just as mad as you are; _madder,_ even. But if you do find a way in and you do bring me something back, then …yes. _Perhaps."_

Fred was beaming. "I can live with perhaps."

"But the chances of you unlocking that door are slim to none and I'm sticking to my part in the agreement, Fred – if you can't stick to yours, then you won't win anything, not even a kiss," she told him, bluntly.

Fred gave an easy shrug. "I've never found a door yet that can't be opened one way or another. You should start getting used to being called Mrs Weasley. And it'd be an idea to start sending out the wedding invitations now; I'll be back in a day or two with your Other-Side-of-the-Door rock."

"A rock doesn't sound particularly romantic," she muttered, looking unimpressed. "I'd rather have something a bit more unusual…"

"Picky, picky. Fine, then, I'll bring you a cat's meow or a dead King's tears."

She smiled. "It's getting late."

He took a step back and made a gallant bow. "Then I bid you goodnight, fair maiden! Tomorrow I leave for Other-Side-of-the-Door, a strange and distant land full of danger and surprises - and if there isn't any, I'll make some of my own."

Angelina laughed, a deep, throaty sound which resonated within his chest, and he went to bed feeling smug and without a single thought of the other world behind the little yellow door or of the dangers that awaited him – two of which were already unlocking the door, turning the handle and stepping onto the cool grassy hill above Ottery St Catchpole.

**oOo**

* * *

******A/N:** Ze adventure's just about to kick off, mon ames! Please review and let me know what you think ('cause let's face it, it's the only way I'm going to improve lol XD) 

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